Re-narrowing (restenosis) of an artherosclerotic coronary artery after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) occurs in 10–50% of patients undergoing this procedure and subsequently requires either further angioplasty or coronary artery bypass graft. While the exact hormonal and cellular processes promoting restenosis are still being determined, our present understanding is that the process of PTCA, besides opening the artherosclerotically obstructed artery, also injures resident coronary arterial smooth muscle cells (SMC). In response to this injury, adhering platelets, infiltrating macrophages, leukocytes, or the smooth muscle cells (SMC) themselves release cell derived growth factors with subsequent proliferation and migration of medial SMC through the internal elastic lamina to the area of the vessel intima. Further proliferation and hyperplasia of intimal SMC and, most significantly, production of large amounts of extracellular matrix over a period of 3–6 months results in the filling in and narrowing of the vascular space sufficient to significantly obstruct coronary blood flow.
Several recent experimental approaches to preventing SMC proliferation have shown promise althrough the mechanisms for most agents employed are still unclear. Heparin is the best known and characterized agent causing inhibition of SMC proliferation both in vitro and in animal models of balloon angioplasty-mediated injury. The mechanism of SMC inhibition with heparin is still not known but may be due to any or all of the following: 1) reduced expression of the growth regulatory protooncogenes c-fos and c-myc, 2) reduced cellular production of tissue plasminogen activator; are 3) binding and dequestration of growth regulatory factors such as fibrovalent growth factor (FGF).
Other agents which have demonstrated the ability to reduce myointimal thickening in animal models of balloon vascular injury are angiopeptin (a somatostatin analog), calcium channel blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (captopril, cilazapril), cyclosporin A, trapidil (an antianginal, antiplatelet agent), terbinafine (antifungal), colchicine and taxol (antitubulin antiproliferatives), and c-myc and c-myb antinsense oligonucleotides.
Additionally, a goat antibody to the SMC mitogen platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) has been shown to be effective in reducing myointimal thickening in a rat model of balloon angioplasty injury, thereby implicating PDGF directly in the etiology of restenosis. Thus, while no therapy has as yet proven successful clinically in preventing restenosis after angioplasty, the in vivo experimental success of several agents known to inhibit SMC growth suggests that these agents as a class have the capacity to prevent clinical restenosis and deserve careful evaluation in humans.
Coronary heart disease is the major cause of death in men over the age of 40 and in women over the age of fifty in the western world. Most coronary artery-related deaths are due to atherosclerosis. Atherosclerotic lesions which limit or obstruct coronary blood flow are the major cause of ischemic heart disease related mortality and result in 500,000–600,000 deaths in the United States annually. To arrest the disease process and prevent the more advanced disease states in which the cardiac muscle itself is compromised, direct intervention has been employed via percutaneous transiuminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) PTCA is a procedure in which a small balloon-tipped catheter is passed down a narrowed coronary artery and then expanded to re-open the artery. It is currently performed in approximately 250,000–300,000 patients each year. The major advantage of this therapy is that patients in which the procedure is successful need not undergo the more invasive surgical procedure of coronary artery bypass graft. A major difficulty with PTCA is the problem of post-angioplasty closure of the vessel, both immediately after PTCA (acute reocclusion) and in the long term (restenosis).
The mechanism of acute reocclusion appears to involve several factors and may result from vascular recoil with resultant closure of the artery and/or deposition of blood platelets along the damaged length of the newly opened blood vessel followed by formation of a fibrin/red blood cell thrombus. Recently, intravascular stents have been examined as a means of preventing acute reclosure after PTCA.
Restenosis (chronic reclosure) after angioplasty is a more gradual process than acute reocclusion: 30% of patients with subtotal lesions and 50% of patients with chronic total lesions will go on to restenosis after angioplasty. While the exact mechanism for restenosis is still under active investigation, the general aspects of the restenosis process have been identified.
In the normal arterial will, smooth muscle cells (SMC) proliferate at a low rate (<0.1%/day; ref). SMC in vessel wall exists in a contractile phenotype characterized by 80–90% of the cell cytoplasmic volume occupied with the contractile apparatus. Endoplasmic reticulum, golgi bodies, and free ribosomes are few and located in the perinuclear region. Extracellular matrix surrounds SMC and is rich in heparin-like glycosylaminoglycans which are believed to be responsible for maintaining SMC in the contractile phenotypic state.
Upon pressure expansion of an intracoronary balloon catheter during angioplasty, smooth muscle cells within the arterial wall become injured. Cell derived growth factors such as platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), etc. released from platelets (i.e., PDGF) adhering to the damaged arterial luminal surface, invading macrophages and/or leukocytes, or directly from SMC (i.e., BFGF) provoke a proliferation and migratory response in medial SMC. These cells undergo a phenotypic change from the contractile phenotype to a synthetic phenotype characterized by only few contractile filament bundles but extensive rough endoplasmic reticulum, golgi and free ribosomes. Proliferation/migration usually begins within 1–2 days post-injury and peaks at 2 days in the media, rapidly declining thereafter (Campbell et al., In: Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells in Culture, Campbell, J. H. and Campbell, G. R., Eds, CRC Press, Boca.Ratioh, 1987, pp. 39–55); Clowes, A. W. and Schwartz, S. M., Circ. Res. 56:139–145, 1985).
Finally, daughter synthetic cells migrate to the intimal layer of arterial smooth muscle and continue to proliferate. Proliferation and migration continues until the damaged luminal endothelial layer regenerates at which time proliferation ceases within the intima, usually within 7–14 days postinjury. The remaining increase in intimal thickening which occurs over the next 3–6 months is due to an increase in extracellular matrix rather than cell number. Thus, SMC migration and proliferation is an acute response to vessel injury while intimal hyperplasia is a more chronic response. (Liu et al., Circulation, 79:1374–1387, 1989).
Patients with symptomatic reocclusion require either repeat PTCA or CABG. Because 30–50% of patients undergoing PTCA will experience restenosis, restenosis has clearly limited the success of PTCA as a therapeutic approach to coronary artery disease. Because SMC proliferation and migration are intimately involved with the pathophysiological response to arterial injury, prevention of SMC proliferation and migration represents a target for pharmacological intervention in the prevention of restenosis.